Worth Repeating: American Incarceration Rates Worst on Planet

Salon’s “Drug War of Attrition” story contains plenty of known evidence that the war on pot is a war on people, families, neighborhoods and entire countries. But it’s worth repeating: the drug war is creating North Korea-like conditions so depressing, drugs seem like a sensible outlet:

“Prohibition has put an unprecedented fraction of the US population behind bars. America now incarcerates some 2.25 million people, more than one-in-five of the world’s prisoners. The number of US inmates serving time for drug charges now exceeds the entire US prison population in 1970, the year before the drug war began. About half of federal prisoners, and 1-in-5 state prisoners, are serving time for non-violent drug crimes. Many more are serving time for violent crimes tied to the drug trade.”

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